After what seems to have been a summer of controversies for the Alberta government, Premier Alison Redford is weighing in on a number of the issues.
The controversies stem back to the beginning of the summer, when the CFO of Alberta Health Service, Allaudin Merali, was fired after expense reports showed he spent over $300,000 of taxpayer dollars on personal expenses, while working at Capital Health, seven years ago.
"I'm very disappointed to see this type of behaviour, it's not appropriate and Albertans should expect us to deal with it," Redford says adding, "But, lets be very clear that the incident that happened, happened under a different administrative regime, under a different government, and at this point in time, while it's very important to ensure the Alberta Health Services system is robust, there hasn't been a suggestion that it's not."
However, it was under this government that Morali was hired by AHS, in May. This has prompted AHS to undergo reviews surrounding expenses.
Redford says AHS has systems in place to deal with the issues and the Auditor General has been involved in ensuring those systems are robust.
"I have confidence that we'll be able to deal with this matter accordingly."
Another issue was the decision to cut a training facility in Fort Macleod for police and peace officer training. Redford says the government is standing behind that decision, saying the facility was not needed.
"What police officers and chiefs of police were saying was 'we don't need this project, and in fact, if this project was to go ahead it wouldn't be a priority for us, and we wouldn't use it'."
She says when it comes to decisions like this, it's important to listen to what stakeholders are saying.
"What they told us was we didn't need to spend the money on this."
Wildrose MLA, Kerry Towle calls the entire situation a 'disaster.'
"Why would you allow this community to invest so heavily in something you knew you never were going to go forward, it's not right," she says adding, "If it wasn't needed then we shouldn't have been pursuing it and allowing municipalities and individual taxpayers to go in and be assured that this is needed and have tax dollars spent on it."
Last week, Finance Minister Doug Horner released the province's first quarter fiscal update. A projected $3 billion deficit was much gloomier and the report itself, much smaller.
"This is one of the most disrespectful things I've ever seen a government do. This is not open, it's not transparent. This is a brochure instead of a quarterly budget update because they don't want to show the numbers, because the numbers are not looking good," says Scott Hennig with the Canadian Taxpayer's Federation.
Hennig suggests details about revenue and expenses left out of the report could be breaking Alberta laws.
"The Auditor General was consulted with respect to the information that was presented. It wasn't about details not being there, although that was the suggestion, what we did was something which I thought was really important. It was an exciting opportunity to change the way we present the information so that we get an absolutely clear snapshot in time, which we did on Friday, with respect to the fiscal projections," Redford explains.
The province is asking departments to find $500 million dollars in savings.
"Redford has lost her optimism and they're painting a dark, gloomy picture for Albertans. I don't think things were as rosy as they say they were, and I don't think they're as gloomy as they say they are today," says Liberal Leader Raj Sherman.
It's safe to say there will be no shortage of topics up for discussion when parties sit for their fall session, October 23rd.
With files from Jenna Bridges.
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